What shape is this staircase? [Phill hits his buzzer.] Yes, Phill?
It’s not there!
All S1
S1 E15Unfinished Business
[What is a "Henge"?]
Is it a very old form of economic investment? It's a henge fund.
[The panellists are given old bronze bowls with small hole in the middle, and asked what they would do with them]
You know what I would use this for, Stephen? If I was enjoying some salted pistachio nuts at home, while watching the Emmerdale omnibus, I would use this to…
SFStephen Fry and Alan Davies
…Kill yourself?
[On why Snakes on a Plane got produced.]
Because people had more money than sense?
So, with that display of general incompetence, we reach the end of recorded history. All that remains to see is who has learned its lessons, and who's condemned to repeat their mistakes endlessly…on Dave.
He can’t have been that ill though, cos he seems to have had time to change his socks.
I’m dying. Get the death socks.
Stephen, can I point out? Can I give the seal of approval to his wonderfully long socks?
Rob long socks. Oh dear.
[On the aye-aye]
I'm not surprised that they're endangered, because clearly they aren't mating, are they? They're looking at each other and going: "I'd rather not!"
It is dark, remember.
All the ugly ones come out in the dark.
That's how Jimmy mates. "I'm happy to do it, luv, but it'll have to be with the lights off."
I can't believe your wife told you that.
Do you know how they separate the men from the boys in the Navy? With a crowbar.
Who finished off Russia’s greatest love machine?
Boney M.
[On the I series "Nobody knows" bonus]
What are the points that you gain by using it correctly?
I think we all agree that nobody in this universe understands QI's scoring system.
Right. So, by that logic, were we to raise the subject of the scoring system, and I was to do that, [holds up his "Nobody knows" card] then… [he's cut off by laughter and applause]
He's made a very good point.
I suppose I'm trapped in an infinite loop. Yes, fortunately that isn't one of the questions.
If it were in a hypothetical round a question - "What is the QI scoring system?" - and then "Nobody knows", [mimics lifting up the card] what would happen to the person who does the QI scoring? Would they not then feel rather sad? They are at least presumably sitting there thinking that they know.
I think they reserve a lot of their creativity for this show, don’t they?
I wonder what the score is now.
Yes, the score now... [He consults his screen.] Amazingly, Bill has three and everyone else has zero.
Why three?! I’d have thought one, or ten. But three?! How would you divide your contribution by three?
[Pointing at each of the other panellists.] Better than you, better than you, better than you. Three.
When was the First World War first named as such?
Um, at the outbreak. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.
You think they called it the first world war straight away?
Before it started, yeah.
It would be an act of a pessimist to call it the first world war that early, surely. It's gonna be some point after 1939, isn't it?
A realist, surely.
[Forfeit klaxon goes off - 1939]
Excuse me! I think I said - I think what I said, people in the box, is after 1939. Which may contain 1939, but does not mean it.
No. Well -
[Forfeit klaxon goes off - AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR]
[waving finger] Okay! No, no, no! "After 1939" and "after the Second World War" are not synonymous. Now, this is just giving you time to type "after 1939".
[Forfeit klaxon goes off - DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR]
Why don't you just type "MITCHELL IS A COCK"?
[warningly] I wouldn't put it past them...
[while testing their buzzers]
And Alan goes:
[presses buzzer]
[forfeit klaxon goes off - WRONG AGAIN!]
[On French phrases that the French themselves don't use]
JBJohn Bishop
What about bidet?
Bidet they do indeed have, though it's easier, really, to do a handstand in the shower, to be honest. But if you want the expense of a bidet…
Easier?
[laughing] If you are as nimble as I am.
I'd pay good money to see that. I'd like to see you doing that, with a camera, [mimics lifting a camera phone] going: "Tweet this!"
I tell you what's always frustrated me, and that is that on a standard typewriter keyboard, when you hit the semicolon, you just have to hit the key. But to get the colon, you have to press that other key. If I was a colon, I'd think: "Surely I take precedence. You are merely a semi version of me! I should be the one that just needs one key!"
These quotes come from Wikiquote's QI pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.